


Bold in Skyhold (a Working Title)

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-03-26 19:24:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13864380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: A series of drabbles and character studies.





	1. Inquisitor Adaar

 Skyhold carries the mountain chill in its stones. There are not enough survivors to fill its halls or its taverns, and the cold seeps into your skin, through your heart.

Once, alcohol would have warmed you—it had before but not today. The flat strumming of the minstrel as she sings a song about the girl named Sera (such a disagreeable girl) lodges in your ears, and Sera’s raucous laughter the floor above you doesn’t help.

Varric is there of course—when he’s not in the hall he’s usually here in this wanna-be tavern—and he’s with Hawke, who is also drinking. They laugh together, the kind of belly throated drinking where there’s just as much laughter as overflowing flagons, the kind where they lean right up into each other’s faces and just send noises with the smell of beer and their last meal and they’re all too drunk to realize that they stink. 

You glower and take a drink. 

You get why Cassandra didn’t want you. Her hopes had been set on Hawke to become the Inquisitor, to head up their Inquisition, not some Tal-Vashoth mage whose right horn had splintered right down the center when you were young—some spell gone awry, Cassandra had presumed. You don’t bother to correct her. She’s the kind who believes what she wants to believe.

Cassandra doesn’t like mages, but most people don’t so you don’t let that bother you—or you try to, at the ver least. After all, she had Solas in her company before you were forced to join her, to prove your innocence even though it still felt you were still trying to prove that to anyone who dared look at you.

Hawke is a mage, though you could barely tell. The staff she carries looks more like a walking stick, and she leans on it like one too because she injured her ankle. She limped right into Skyhold, and Varric had hidden her away so you could have the first—no second—chance to talk to her. The character in Varric’s novel would have just swaggered in the place, bold as brass. But that is just a story—this is the real thing, the real person. 

Of course, you had known that Cassandra had been looking for Hawke for an age. It was hardly a secret. But knowing wasn’t the same as understanding, and you had understood exactly what that meant when you had seen her anger towards Varric, the things she had said about him as if she were better than the rest of them. Completely, and totally out of line, and you look back with regret. You should have shut that down sooner.

You wonder if Cassandra would have looked so hard if Hawke wasn’t human.

Over Varric’s newly filled flagon, he catches your eye and nods. He wants you to join them, but you can’t. You’re bad company. You nod right back, and then get back to stewing over Cassandra.

You’d never have her approval—not truly—because she was still too caught up in the idea of how she could have had Hawke if only Varric had yielded to her whim. She’s here in the tavern too, sitting in a dark corner, not even drinking as she watches Hawke and Varric.

You have a copy of Varric’s book about Hawke, had procured it when you’d realized what both Cassandra and Lelianna had wanted. On the cover, Hawke wore battle mage armor—the metal shining as it bore her family crest. She bore no such markings of class here. Her skin, clean on the cover, was rubbed with dirt and muck from travel. Her hair had been lopped short. Her stomach was soft, rolling over her belt, but drawn with abdominal muscles that would catch anyone’s eye. 

The champion of Kirkwall, everybody.

You wonder if Varric is writing a book about you. What will he change? You regret every drop you’ve drunk tonight as it roils in your belly.  

“What are you doing, sitting here all alone?” Cassandra has the gall to ask you.

You take a long drink to hide the roll of your eyes. “Fishing,” you say after you’re done, because it was obvious you wanted to be alone.

But she’s not taking the hint. Instead, she joins you, and she follows your gaze to Hawke, who is up on the table now with Varric. Drink, drink, drink, the people chant. 

They do.

You and Cassandra catch each other’s gaze. You are afraid that you have the same look in your eyes, the one that is concerned.

Hawke is drinking a lot. Drinking a game that indicates she drinks more than likely daily.

You are ashamed of your judgement. After all, you’ve frequented the tavern more frequently than not. The mark burns in your palm, and the alcohol dulls its presence to a buzz. Maybe one day, after all this was over and you survived, you’d be in the same position as Hawke.

“I can’t believe she’s here,” Cassandra murmurs, like she doesn’t realize you’ve already figured out why she treats you the way she does, and assumes you’d like to commiserate together.

“Is she everything you dreamed she would be?” The question comes out dry and cracked. You’re at an advantage here. Cassandra had nothing but distrust and disdain. Now those have leveled out to something more tolerant because you already exceeded the zero expectations she had of you.

But poor Hawke. There was no way someone real could stand on top of that pedestal.

You are mean to even say that to Cassandra.

“Will you take me with you?” Cassandra said.

You try not to play favorites with your counsel and the companions who had thrown their lot with yours. You preferred to take Iron Bull because if you didn’t, you were the only like you—Vivienne and Solas and Dorian were mages but you did not like to be completely alone.

It needles that she asks. It does not make you feel great for reasons you can’t articulate. But you can’t think of a good reason to keep Cassandra here. She would only take keeping an eye on Cullen for so long, and even you wouldn’t want to punish your worst enemy with something like that. 

You look through the widow, in the little room on the wall that Cullen took for his own. The light still shines. He’s still up there, somewhere, strategizing, maneuvering, conveniently forgetting his past as he tries to bury it deep under good works. 

You do not like him. So you relent. “Alright,” you say.

Gratitude softens her features, and that needles you too. The good feeling wouldn’t last. Cassandra still hadn’t forgiven you for siding with the mages, even though she supported the decision publicly. You try to push it aside. You can’t, and it keeps you up at ight. You walk the wall (the one away from Cullen’s spot), and you’re shocked when you run right into Hawke. 

She had conjured a fire in her palm, to keep her warm. She looks up at you, looking alarmed and then relieved. “Oh, it’s you.” 

“It’s me,” you agree dumbly.

“Can’t sleep?” 

You shake your head.

“Me neither.”

The silence grows into something comfortable. You light a fire in your palms as well because it is so cold.

“I’m so tired of this shit,” Hawke says. She leans forward on the wall, pressing her cheek to the cold stone. “I just want it to be over and it never is.”

Hawke had defeated Corypheus once before, and he was back again like a bad song. Even if you succeed where Hawke failed—and you’re not even so sure you can—you know that there will be something else. This Age seemed to attract trouble. 

You wonder if you will answer the call for the next round of trouble, or if you will disappear like the Hero of Ferelden, or hide like Hawke. Whatever will happen next—you hope you’ll have a choice.

“We should go,” you say.

You part, tired and exhausted, and sleep for the meager hours before dawn. Everyone looks like shit when you meet up, ready for travel, except for Vivienne who greets you with a good morning, darling, and means it. 

“All hail the conquering heroes,” you whisper as you march out the gates. Hawke is the only one who hears, and snorts a solitary laugh. You smile back. There may come a day where things will suck even more, where you’ll be abandoned and alone, your enemy’s victory at hand, but today is not that day. And look at the sun rising from those mountains—gorgeous.

If nothing else, at least there was the view.


	2. Inquisitor Adaar

You fall and fall and fall. You’re in the Fade, near as you can tell, and you’ve brought your companions with you: Iron Bull, Dorian, Varric, Hawke, and Loghaine.

The Fade disorients you, as it always does. Fear pricks your fingers and you clench the wood of your staff to numb it. You can’t afford to have your thoughts and concentration scattered by it. You’d die for sure. Not just you—your companions too. The mark glows green in the palm of your hand. You would have splattered against the stone without it, but you resent it still.

Your memories—you do not want them, yet they are thrust upon you again. It is as you have always known—you are no one’s herald, just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. You are okay with this, and you look forward to the faithful among your companions and the rest of the world to come to grips with the truth.

There is much fear here. It gnaws at you even as you try to focus. Fear cracks the companions around you as they devolve to bickering and trying to pin fault. “Enough,” you say, and they listen to you because you are the Inquisitor.

Varric and Hawke lean towards each other. You try to ignore the loneliness that aches through you, not meeting your eyes as you touch the mirrors, their glass stinging as the electric storms you summon as they pass a taste of magic into your skin.

The Nightmare waits, blocking the path. You are tired. Your companions sag their shoulders. They are weary too. There is no way that you could defeat the Nightmare, even if everyone was at their best. The path is clear to you—as you imagine it is to the others—and you balk at the choice.

Hawke volunteers to stay behind and distract the Nightmare so everyone can escape. She says Corypheus was her responsibility. Varric’s gaze remains at his feet, but you see the way his skin twitches around the eyes, the mouth as he wants to say something but chooses not to.

This isn’t Corypheus, you want to say, but the words die in your throat. Now is not the time for snipes.

Loghaine also volunteers to be the martyr because of the actions of the Wardens in bringing about this mess. He has a point, you think, but what you think doesn’t matter. You’re supposed to be beyond personal believes, thinking of the bigger picture, what would be best for everyone—or as many people as possible. You don’t have the luxury of personal opinion.

They look to you to choose. If they truly desired this, they wouldn’t wait for your command. They are hoping there is a way out, that you will provide them an escape route from their noble intentions.

You hate them for that.

Varric tries to steal a look at you, like a good thief, but when your eyes meet he refocuses on the ground.

You try to think through the fear and desperation and the resentment. The wardens would need a leader, but you had Blackwall. He could do the job. Better than Loghaine could? You can’t really say. You barely know Loghaine.

For that matter, you barely know Hawke. The only thing you know about her is that Varric values her more than anyone in the world—more than you, despite the friendship you feel for him, and he for you.

The decision to leave Hawke behind would break his heart—and your heart would break in turn for your friend.

You squeeze your eyes shut. Time is not on your side.

“Loghaine will stay behind,” you say. The words come slowly, distorted. Did you make the right choice? You don’t know. Loghaine does what he’s meant to do, you escape. All is not well, but there may be hope. 

You take the Wardens in. What more can you do to make up for the loss you have dealt them? When you return to Skyhold behind the news of your decision, Cassandra disapproves because of course she does.

Even Vivienne does, a little. “I’m sure you did the best you could, my dear,” she says.

You’re grateful that she understands it’s easy to suppose what the right thing to do is in the luxury of Skyhold. You weren’t there, you say to Cassandra, to Solas. At least Iron Bull and Dorian thought you took the right course of action—whatever that meant. But they had been there, they had seen.

You clench your hands in fists. You crave their approval, and you know you can never have it, not from all of them. They had too much personal stake, too many of their own beliefs—just as you did.

But you crave it all the same.

Josephine joins you, the candle on her board burned all the way to a nub.

You lie awake when she has long gone to sleep, the choice going circles in your mind. Your choices sounded logical—but how much of it was based on personal reason instead of strategy? You repeat to yourself that Blackwall could step into the role Loghaine left behind. He can, and he will when all this is said and done. And if Corypheus wins—then all of this worry doesn’t matter.

The way Varric hadn’t met your gaze haunts you. He had tried—was not going to say a word so he would not sway you. He did not want to put you in such a difficult position because he is a good friend. But his silence had spoken even louder than his voice, louder than the stories he had ever written about Hawke. 

Perhaps the others saw through it. They knew you had chosen selfishly, no matter how rationally you tried to frame it. Somehow, they knew. 

The guilt is relentless, but as time goes on and there is something else to do, some other evil to defeat, it ebbs. It heals, with time.

Until you find out that Blackwall is not truly Blackwall. That he was never a Grey Warden. Your mouth goes dry. Your knees weaken. Your breath shudders in the hollow spaces of your chest.

You chose wrong, and now you get to live with it, along with everyone else—except for those already dead because of you.


	3. Inquisitor Adaar

You see a parchment nailed haphazardly to a tree in Skyhold. You step forward to examine it.

_Observed: The Inquisitor climbing the walls and scrambling across rooftops. New physical fitness regimen or hopelessly lost?_

Another paragraph is scrawled beneath in a different hand. _Rumor has it_ _she wandered aimlessly seeking Madame de Fer, who watched from afar and smiled. Good afternoon, my dear. I’m so glad you found the time to meet with me._

A new line. _Vivienne’s grace would shine bright even the darkest hall. If she did not call out she did not know the Inquisitor sought her_.

Other notes followed. The reason she didn’t have a full pair of curling horns is because she lost the other half, the real reason her hand glowed green was to light her way, she packed maps but if only she could actually read, and the jabs at her coarse dialect, her lack of culture and manners went on.

The last line read: _Too bad Adaar became so lost she ended up in Redcliffe_.

Your throat is dry as you touch the paper. They doubt you. They make fun of you. You encourage people not to believe you are some sort of mystical herald, but that there are some who do not even believe in you as the Inquisitor? Something desperate crawls up your throat and sours in your mouth. Josie had advised you had lost much political clout when you had decided to side with the mages. Did nothing you had done afterwards count? Did Skyhold truly matter so little to them? 

Your hands itch. The one with the mark aches.

“You want me to add something scathing to that bit of paper, your Inquisitorialness?”

Varric is behind you. You wonder if the comment standing up for Vivienne is his, and then you are sure that it is. 

You shake your head. “But if you have a pen, I would borrow it from you.”

He grins and takes one from his pouch. In a clear script, nothing too fancy, you write, _Or perhaps she is merely lost in thought_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this because I could not find my way to Cullen or Vivienne or Cole for the longest time. I missed the staircase leading to Cullen and I literally was sprinting across rooftops trying to find way. Sad.


	4. Inquisitor Adaar

You cannot sleep. Josie is warm against your back, and you wish you could turn to her, kiss her, but you would not have her start tomorrow unrested.

You nimbly slip out of bed. Josie stirs once, sighs, and then rolls into the warm spot you left behind. You tuck the blankets around her shoulders so the morning chill won’t wake her early. Darkness fills the stairs, but the dim green light from your hand lights your way. It aches. It’s always worse in the cold, unless it’s your imagination. Maybe it’s just always worse.

Hunger didn’t wake you, but you find yourself going to the kitchen. Scraps from the night’s meal is left for you, and you take them without glancing over your shoulder. No one would question you here. Maybe the cook would grumble, but they had Sera and Cole to worry about. You should worry about them too, you think, until you realize you would not mind their company.

You eat in the mark’s green light. It stops aching, and instead numbs your hand. Who would you be without it? What would happen if it was just—removed from the game?

The crust of bread falls from your other hand. You consider your palm. You remember Corypheus, his large hand choking you, about to reclaim the mark for himself. 

You knew the ways of the rift. You could recreate what the mark did. It would be harder. You would be spent. But you were certain it could be done. You believed it could be done without the mark—it had to be possible.

You walk to where the knives are cut, selecting a cleaver fashioned for chopping animals into more edible parts, slicing through bone and sinew with expert skill.

You could do it. You had wielded your dagger often enough. Was this so much different? 

Your hand rests on the wooden block scored with hacks. Your skin shivers and trembles. The light flashes, like it knows what you are about to do. It can’t stop you.

You raise the cleaver—

Sera laughs raucously at something Cole has murmured to her. You barely have time to hide the knife behind your back when they enter. They are surprised to see you hear. 

“What are you doing?” Sera asks.

The knife is heavy behind you. “Nothing.”

You think Cole can see right through you. But you leave, all smiles, though you berate yourself. What were you thinking? You had the trust of too many to simply shrug it off. When you return, you still cannot sleep, and you are cross though you cannot let them sell. You can never let them see. 


	5. Inquisitor Trevelyan

Dorian slouches in an overly large armchair, one leg crossed at the knee. He reads a book, but turns the pages listlessly. He glances up when you stir. “Ah, you’re awake.”

His eyes are bloodshot. Nose swollen and red at the tip. Pallor lingers in the hollows of his cheeks. “You look like shit.”

He gestures towards you. “Oh, look who’s talking.”

You look down at your arm, or where your arm should have been. Gauzy bandages wrap your stub. They appear damp, like your flesh has wept. You’re about to ask what the hell happened when you remember. The events of the last few days come back unforgiving as a tidal wave, and you can’t breathe because you’re drowning.

You roll towards the wall away from Dorian. You can barely look at him. How can he possibly look at you, sit with you?

The storm coast. Salt in the air and your hair. The Iron Bull beside you. Despite his height, he had never seemed to tower.

“Boss,” he said.

“Bas,” he said.

You never realized how similar those two words sounded until he showed you.

The storm coast. Salt in the air and your hair. The Iron Bull beside you, freely telling you that he was a spy.

You probably should have taken that more seriously. But you wanted allies though, needed allies, and the Qun would not have remained satisfied with Tevinter forever. Besides….you liked his honesty. That meant something, right? What kind of spy could you trust if not the spy that told you who he was?

You are a fucking idiot.

The storm coast again. Salt in the air and your hair. The Iron Bull, waiting, beside you, waiting for you to make another impossible choice.

The Chargers or the alliance with the Qun? What was best for your friends or what was best for Thedas? Bull’s heart or your leadership?

It is impossible, and you do not have time, you must choose, and so you choose the greater good. Vaguely, you wonder if you stepped over a line, have risked everything with Bull, but it wasn’t just the Chargers tying him to the Inquisition—there is Dorian also. You cannot lose the allies you have gained when the sky is falling down and the world is crumbling at your feet. Bull is a leader too—he must understand, he must.

They are your friends too. You have shared drink with them. But, just as you have come to terms that you will more than likely die in this fight either by Corypheus or some assassin, you know that they have as well. Krem just as much told you so before the mission. The bitter irony is that you chose this position because you thought the chance of death was greater, and you would not ask something of your soldiers if you were not willing to give yourself.

You watch Iron Bull when you give the order. There is no time for debate. You hold your breath as you wait for him to follow you or to mutiny.

You exhale when he follows your command..

But still. When you’re in Skyhold, when the loss of the Chargers hits you so hard you can’t breathe, when you enter the tavern and it’s so quiet with their absence—you seek him out, though you dread him too.

He brings you to the walls. Perhaps he means to throw you over them, to let the ground that drank the Charger’s blood have yours too. You almost welcome it. He does none of those things. He grieves, yes, but his heart is clear. He can serve you and the Inquisition truly. You nod. You try to find the words you think he most wants to hear.

You are truly and utterly miserable. You wish that he had wanted to throw you like a sack of rotten potatoes over the parapet.

Josie tells you that you did the right thing. You wonder if she’s telling you that because she feels she ought to support you here, in your quarters, when you’re simply two women in a relationship, or if she’s telling you that as an ambassador and a member of your counsel. Your eyes close. You nod dumbly. Of course, the Inquisitor made the right choice.

But did you make the right choice?

Time moves resolutely forward. The pain the Chargers left behind fade. Bull throws himself into the fight. He lights up with something bright and focused when there is another dragon to slay. He hates the magic shit, but this is something that he knows, something that he understands, something that he finds kinship in.

Something whispers in your heart if you are right to kill the dragons. You do not know. Some of the dragons, yes, have terrorized the countryside around them. But others….others are sleeping when you find them, when you wake them only to kill them. If others have your reservations, they do not voice them. You try not to think too hard about why you have chosen this path—the people love that the dragons are gone, Bull loves killing them, and so what’s the problem? You don’t know. You don’t have the words.

The Bull asks when you will find another dragon for them to kill. You promise that he will be the first to know.

Then Corypheus is dead. Shockingly, all have survived except for the ones who slipped away in the night. You drink together again. You remember those who are gone, and old wounds ache again. Nothing ever fully heals—this you have learned.

The Bull’s and yours paths do not diverge completely, but they part for a little ways. You meet again in Val Royeaux, and he offers that you drink with him again.

You accept, and you know that you’re not in for a good time because of all the political bullshit, but wow you really weren’t expecting the thickening plots, the dead Qunari bodies, and the paranoid suspicion crawling up your back that there is a leak somewhere, a spy.

You hate that you wonder, if only for a moment, if it’s Bull.

But it can’t be—it couldn’t be. He fights beside you, even now, even though it’s this magic crap that he hates.

“Bas.”

The word breaks you. There’s no time to cry out to him, to ask him to wait, let’s discuss this, whatever is wrong—we can fix it. His sword is raised, he brings it down on you, and you barely have time to set up on a mind blast that sends him tumbling backwards. Qunari swarm. Your body takes over, muscle memory of being beset on too many sides by demons, red Templars, and enemies too many to name. The spells come to you, and you release them. You wield your staff like a club. Against your will, the mark on your hand discharges.

You’re barely standing when it’s over. Bull had always lead the charge, throwing away his standard two handed weapon in favor of a sword and shield. “The things I do for you, Boss.”

Your side is wounded from a spear thrust not quite pushed aside. You search for Bull. Perhaps he escaped with her, that other Qunari, whom you are quite certain you hate right now. Your throat is too swollen and dry to call his name.

But you find him, there, with the other corpses. He’s on his knees, his body sagged over, head hanging back. Arrows pierce his chest, arrows like the ones Varric carries. He refuses to look at you, even though you had saved Hawke for him.

Anger flashes through you, but goes up in smoke when you see the sign of the mark. His one good eye is melted shut, burns blister his face.

You did this. You.

Dorian stands away. There is no sign of his magic on Bull.

The mark pulses through your hand, a burning, insistent pain that pulls you to your knees. You crawl to him, even though you need to go, you need to move, there are more Qunari gathering outside and you are pretty sure you hear the wing beats of a dragon, and Dragon’s Breath makes so much sense.

But Bull is there. You clutch his shoulder with the hand not fritzing green electricity, bracing his back against your belly as you once more lean on him for strength. Your finger searches his thick, muscled neck for a pulse. Varric is urging you to go, that there’s no time—and now he’s pulling at you, trying to drag you to your feet even as you wrench yourself away from him.

It’s not fair that there’s no time. There should be time for this, and you think—you can make time.

The mark makes it too easy. You create a rift in the world around you—and you are in the Fade. Time has no meaning here.

You had hoped he yet lived when you pulled him through, but now it is clear to you that he is dead. “Why, Bull? Why?” you whisper anyway, though there is no hope of any answers. You close your eyes. Your head falls into the cradle of his neck and shoulders—and you wonder if there is anything you could have done differently. He grows cold. Stiffly, you climb to your feet and pull wrench Bianca’s arrows from his body. Struggling with his weight, you lay him flat. You refit his sword in his hand and place his shield on his chest. You tell him one last time, “I’m sorry.”

You cannot delay here. Time is still passing, though differently, and you can hear the others as a distant memory. You push yourself back, and rise to your feet.

It’s time to go.

The dragon has been tortured, and you hate that. Bull would want to set it free with death—but if he was right about the dragons and the Qunari, that is not what you are going to do. Not this time.

“It’s going to be hard to kill,” Varric says.

What he means is that without Bull it will be damn near impossible to succeed. Good thing killing it is not the plan. “We’re going to set it free.”

“You are?’ You’ve killed every dragon in your path and you’re going to set this one free?”

“Yes.” You can already see the way the fire is supposed to keep it at bay, and you see the mechanisms controlling it. You sprint forward, hoping that the magic from your magic ring will keep you out of sight of the Qunari handlers. The dragon senses you, his fight redoubles. You turn the gear even though your entire body aches, even though your blood loss weakens you. You move on to the next, and the next. If the Qunari for some reason see you as less of a threat than their nearly out of control dragon, Varric and Dorian set them right. 

The dragon lobs venom instead of fire or frost. It splatters the stone wall. Vapor bubbles from the stone as the acid eats at it. Your flesh crawls. 

You are surrounded with poison. The poison of Solas leaving. The poison of Blackwall’s lies. The poison of Bull’s lie, the grief of it eating you. The poison of this fucking dragon you have to avoid as you sprint across its cage to open the door. It flies off, but that’s still not enough as you battle the remaining Qunari, only to be told another lie—that Solas is the agent, and you are damned if you’re going to let them get to him before you. 

You remember then what Bull had said, when you saw the portrait of Fen’Harel: “It reminds me of Solas.” Had he revealed himself briefly, and you had been too blind to see? 

You shake it off. It doesn’t matter. Bull is dead, and Solas is the next target—but no other companion will die today, even if he did betray you.

There is no time to rest. There is no time to regroup and gather your strength. You dive headfirst into the mirror, not caring if the others follow, because you are going to save your friend even if it’s the last thing you ever do in this world.

You have almost no strength to battle the hordes of Qunari left behind to delay your progress.  

And, at the end of it—you see that Solas does not need your help after all—doesn’t need you or the world. If the Bull died, his godly concerns are too big for him to care or notice. The mark brings you to your knees again as you plead with him.

All along you thought there would be a magic solution, but he just cuts your hand off before leaving you behind again. At least, you think dumbly, the anchor is back with its rightful owner. The Bull will see it as something that makes them more similar, more the dynamic duo:  you with the missing hand, him with the missing eye—except, except--

They say they found you on your knees, nearly catatonic, your body slumped forward, your head hung back to stop your tears.


End file.
